Chapter 4205  Off the Trail (Part 2)

"Thanks to proximity and the trade agreements between our countries, we eat the same things and live almost in the same way. Once you get past Aphasi, however, no one bothers remembering the names of the single countries."

"There are too many out there, and their names and the position of their borders change way too often. A war lost here, a revolution there, and the map you bought yesterday is useless today."

"Do the people of Verendi really fight this much?" Nyka was flabbergasted.

"Sadly, yeah." The merchant leader nodded. "Until about two years ago, the political situation was more stable. Don't get me wrong, neighboring countries still fought every other day, but there was a balance of forces.

"Then, everything fell apart, and while the people of Verendi were still picking up the pieces, Tyris came in a storm. The sky went black, and all those too slow or stupid to move out of her way died.

"After she left, a lot of key figures of Verendi disappeared, and conflicts spread across the continent like a disease. Since that day, Verendi hasn't known peace for longer than a few weeks at a time."

Nyka turned to Solus, who gave her a silent nod.

'I'd feel guilty for what happened here if the Verendi Council didn't try to kill me to silence me and hide the existence of the Mouth.' Solus said via a mind link. 'We did what we did to defend ourselves.'

'What about Tyris and her storm?' Nyka asked.

'The bastards tried to kill Kami and hurt Elysia.' Solus snarled. 'They got what they deserved.'

The Vampire felt the cold fury burning instead of her friend's usual kindness and decided to drop the argument.

"Loma, are you still with the caravan?" Ygri's voice came from the still-open channel.

"Yes." The Horde replied.

"The coast is clear. I checked the area for kilometers. There are no surveillance arrays nor people spying on you."

"Thank the gods!" The semblance of a man behind which Loma hid dissolved into an orange fog-like mass of spores.

The merchants in his carriage flinched, but aside from bringing their hands to the weapons at their waists, they didn't say a word.

"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to scare you." Loma sighed. "What about crossing the border on the way back? Not to sound ungrateful, Lady Kalla, but we Hordes prefer to move without leaving a paper trail.

"No border guard ever asks the wind for IDs, and we'd rather keep our destination a secret after we find our missing youth. Will my absence inconvenience you in any way?"

"We have received precise instructions from the Overlord." The caravan leader offered Solus his communication rune. "We'll wait for milady's return in the city of Pakeesh for as long as she needs, or until she finds an alternative way back."

"Thanks." Solus exchanged runes with him, understanding Salaark's intentions. "I'll let you know about our plans as soon as we are done with our mission."

"Good, then we can leave." The orange mist swirled into a Steps that led the three women a few kilometers away and in front of the silvery mist of Ygri.

"How did you do that?" Nyka asked. "Opening a Warp Steps in a moving space is incredibly difficult. Are you a dimensional mage?"

"I wish." Loma sighed, pointing at the orange mist that formed the exit point. "I just split my body in two. I know where both my halves are with pinpoint precision, just like you know where your hands are at all times.

"Ygri, this is Lady Kalla, owner of the Eyes of Menadion and good friend of Lith, her daughter Nyka, and Lady Solus Verhen." Loma said. "Ladies, this is Ygri, the Horde in charge of searching Verendi for newborn members of our race."

"Nice to meet you, ladies." Ygri gave them a polite bow and shapeshifted into a silvery replica of their guests.

"Having another Horde energy signature will help the Eyes looking for the fungus folk, but it's far from enough." Kalla tapped on the frame of the right lens. "I can't detect anything from here."

Solus synced the Apprentice with the Master Eyes and nodded. Even with their power combined, the artifacts failed to find a third matching energy signature.

"I would have been surprised otherwise. This is just our meeting point. Our youngest has been spotted far from here." Ygri replied.

"Do not waste our time listing all the places where you've followed the fungus folk's trail." Nyka blushed at her mother's blunt words, but the Hordes seemed to appreciate her directness. "Just bring me to the site of their most likely sighting, and I'll do the rest."

"Excellent." Ygri opened a series of Warps Steps that allowed the group to travel hundreds of kilometers in a handful of seconds. "If you are as good as Verhen says, Lady Kalla, finding our missing youngling shouldn't be too hard.

"Unlike our competition, we know how the fungus folk reason because we Hordes have been in their shoes at one time. Unless they are a weirdo, of course."

"What competition?" Nyka asked. "The Verendi Council as a whole, or just a few Awakened?"

"That's impossible to say, Lady Nyka. Whoever is after our youngest didn't leave anything that could lead to their identification behind." The silvery Horde moved his upper mass in what looked like a shrug.

"What I know for sure is that I wasn't always the first one to arrive on the scene of a sighting."

They stopped in the middle of a valley where tall grass grew and several trees provided shade from the intense heat of the day. Weird animals with sand-colored hides lifted their heads from the nearby stream to look at the intruders.

Solus would have thought they were deer if not for the weird, straight horns on their head that reminded her of a Manticore.

"When I first arrived here, this place was a mess." Ygri pointed at a spot a few dozen meters away, where the grass was greener and lusher than the rest. "There were several holes in the ground left by powerful earth spells, and most of the grass was burned to ashes.

"I recognized all the signs of an intense fight involving a fungus folk, but aside from the burnt marks, there was no trace of big spells being used. I think whoever was here tried and failed to capture our kin and is currently chasing after them."

"Let me guess." Kalla sniffed the area while taking a deep scan with the Eyes of Menadion. "You fixed everything with magic to make sure you were the only one to know where the most recent fight had taken place, correct?"

"Correct." The silvery Horde nodded.

"Congratulations, you're an idiot." Kalla snorted. "Your brilliant move will surely throw the rest of the pursuers off the trail, because I can't make heads or tails of this mess either.

"I can sense several energy signatures that I could have filtered out, if yours didn't cover them like a fart in a flower shop. As far as I can tell, you have destroyed every trace of the fungus folk's passage and with it any hope of finding them."